A few months ago I acquired a 1983 242ti Flathood Turbo. The only perceivable problem with the car was a rough idle while the car was warming up. It was a minor annoyance only. Then last month, the head gasket failed. I took it to a repair shop that specializes in all european cars. When they sent the head off to the machine shop, the machine shop said: "hey, this head has been ported and polished." After the head came back to the shop, they reassembled the car and tried to tune it. A timing light revealed the timing at 23 degrees advance. The car idled very roughly. They wondered aloud "say, do you think this car has some hot rod cam?" They fiddled with the car for a while, then the shop owner test drove the car. I was the passenger. The car seemed to pull well, but the shop owner kept on and on about how the car had that "hot rod cam" in it and it would never run right. It was late, well passed closing time and I had no other way to get home, so I took the car.

It had absolutely NO power below 2500 rpm - and then above 2800 it would knock, but had power. What instantly stuck me was, I wonder if they got the timing belt off by one tooth. Isn't 1 tooth equal to 12 degrees?

I brought the car back and they kept it for a couple days. I suggested that the belt was off by one mark. The said "impossible... well, possible, but not likely..." They called me and told me that all it needed was a new cap and rotor.

I picked up the car and drove it for a few days. It has a growl upon acceleration that was not there pre-head gasket. It has power across the spectrum and accelerates nicley. But the car idles VERY roughly and it would exhibit a strange behavior: When cruising at 2600 rpm or less, when the throttle is just barely depressed and the Turbo gauge is showing near zero total manifold pressure (not vacuum, but when the needle is in the 9 o'clock position), the car hesitates ever so slightly. It acts like it doesn't want to run at all. But then if you open the throttle up, the car zooms forward.

Fast forward a couple days:

This past saturday, I started the car and it idled (while cold) at about 2400rpm. After the car reached full operating temperature, the car decided not to idle at all!

so now I am a bit perplexed.

Several questions and comments...

1) If the cam is a "hot rod cam" (presumably one of the ipd/iskiderian cams, what are the distiquishing markings?

2) Does one of these cams require special valve clearance settings?

3) My money is still on the timing belt being off - I think they rotated the distributer and fiddled with the mixture to get the car closer to normal settings.

4) Any ideas about the bizarre idling troubles?

thanks in advance!

Hey,

i read your post and most of the replies. Your situation sounds very similar to one I had on a Saab 99 with CIS. In that case, the prior technician had injection hoses crossed and he could not figure it out. It took a while of just looking to sort the problem.

Maybe....

What hoses could they possibly have crossed on CIS? They all run off the same chamber of the fuel distributor (whether a 4 cyl VW or Volvo, or 8 cyl Porsche or Benz) in just the same way as all the electrical (LH-Jet) injectors are wired in parallel - all cylinders spray simutaneously.

Memory serves that the control pressure line was crossed with the cold start. Anyway, after a long long look, the lines in question were correctly installed and the car ran like a champ.

Re. the cam belt misalignment - that's easy enough to check out. Just remove the belt covers and rotate the engine to #1 cylinder TDC. The cam, distributor and crank gears all have markings that should align with markings on the front of the engine if the cam belt is in the right position. Most shop manuals have pictures of this.

The above assumes that the car has the stock cam gear - not an aftermarket one that's adjustable. Again, this would be obvious with the covers off.

Re. excessively high idle speed and then no idle. Sounds something is wrong with the constant idle system. Check the archieves here on how to trouble-shoot this. What was the ambient termperature when it did this?

Hope this helps.

I had one of these from 88 to 99. I never saw or heard or read of one with any hotrod parts from the factory, and I belong to all the Volvo mailing lists and have belonged to various clubs and have been to meets. The real race cars were modified. These cars were just the first batch with intercoolers.

Your car may have been owned by someone who fiddled with it. I put an A grind cam in mine, along with many other parts (1990 manifold, sport turbo, HKS EVC, Centerforce clutch, locking rear, 5th EFI injector, etc.), for example.

My vote, without seeing the car, is that it needs to be sorted out by a Volvo expert. Stay away from the all import experts. No one is an expert in all imports. Stay away from the all European experts. Can't know all of those inside and out, either. Find several Volvo-only specialists. Talk to each. Do any of them even know much about 81-85 240 Turbos? Are any of them good with K Jetronic? Do any of them like working on possibly hotrodded cars? I choose mechanics very carefully. If you are near southern NH, I can recommend two.

Philip Bradley

And if you're in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, I can recommend a good place.

Philip,

I'm interested in knowing who these two in NH are. Email me privately.

Thanks,

Jake

There have been rumors that some of the "flathoods" did have performance head work and you may have one. The cam is marked on the rear bearing and can be read with a dental mirror. It can be a hard stamping to see but when you see it it is obvious. There are plenty of hot Volvo cams and you may have one of those. Refer to T-bricks for cam data.

The valve clearances must be reset with a cam change but I am not aware of any change in clearance that you must set. And yes, the timing belt tooth error is a better than 50/50 chance. It gets everyone.

Idle? Injector leak, some cams, what else?